


Clowntime is Over, or Six Things That Can be Found in the Desk of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Jr.

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2019-07-16 04:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: You can learn a lot about a person by what objects they keep close to them.





	Clowntime is Over, or Six Things That Can be Found in the Desk of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Jr.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sinfulslasher for the NCIS Ficathon, August 2011, for the prompt "Keepsakes! Write a story involving something Tony keeps in his desk. Why does he keep it, what does it mean to him? Could be about Gibbs' medals or the fluffy handcuffs or something else entirely! :) Can be gen/friendship or slash (Gibbs/Tony), humor or angst or romance. Surprise me! *g*” Big thanks to carleton97 for looking this over! The title is from the song “Clowntime is Over,” music and lyrics by Elvis Costello.

_**Center drawer, top: A photograph of Tony on the sidelines during an Ohio State University football game, circa 1992.** _

In the photo, Tony is standing near one end of the bench, looking toward the field and yelling. Shelly caught him in profile, and the angle makes him look oddly fierce, like he’s roaring. Shelly lived on his floor in the dorm, a cheerful whirlwind of a girl who wanted to be a photojournalist and volunteered to shoot football games for the Lantern because she wanted practice taking pictures of fast action. Getting to sneak in free darkroom time for her personal projects was a nice bonus.

She’d dropped off the picture on Sunday afternoon, the entire floor quiet because everyone had woken up that morning and realized they hadn’t started their weekend homework yet. “I was surprised to see how intense you were, because usually you’re so laid-back,” she’d said. “Is it okay that I took it?”

“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks, Shelly.” He hugged her. Some people thought the two of them were more than friends, but she had a boyfriend who was a really good guy.

Tony kept the picture in one of the drawers of his desk in the dorm until he moved off-campus, and then he stuck it on a bulletin board in his room, along with pizza-delivery menus, fraternity pictures, ticket stubs – the usual miscellaneous stuff that everyone ends up collecting. Every time he packed his stuff for a move (Peoria, Philly, Baltimore, DC), he’d transfer the picture to his new place. He never thought about why he continued to carry it around, beyond it being a memory of good times, both with the team and with Shelly, who was a stringer for the Associated Press when she died in a car crash in London, on her way to a press conference to take pictures of Gordon Brown.

It took Tony a long time to realize he keeps the picture because it was the last time he had clear victories and losses he could learn from. If the team scored more points than Wisconsin, they won. If he missed a catch because he broke right instead of left, he worked harder on memorizing the playbook. Once he became a cop, the losses were overwhelming and the victories felt hollow. He caught a rapist, but the victim had to live with it forever. He got a kid away from his abusive father, but the foster home wasn’t much better. He nailed a killer to the wall, but the guy who’d been shot was still dead.

These days, he can’t remember exactly what was happening when Shelly took the photo, what he was shouting about. But he wants that moment back – not because he was young, and loved his frat brothers, or was having lots of great sex (although all of those things are true). He wants that clarity again, that focus, a time when his dreams were about making touchdowns, and tinged with red because of his uniform, and not from blood.

_**Bottom drawer, right-hand side: Several black-leatherette medal cases, containing various NCIS commendation medals inscribed to Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, dates vary.** _

The weird thing is, Tony doesn’t go digging through Gibbs’ desk for the medals. Nosy as he is, snooping on Gibbs would be both dumb and dangerous, and Tony only _plays_ dumb.

What actually happens is that Tony (for the second time) accepts a commendation medal on Gibbs’ behalf, after Morrow tells him to show up at the ceremony and accept Gibbs’ medal. At the ceremony, Tony takes the medal from Morrow’s outstretched hand, tries to make a speech, gets cut off, and keeps the medal on his desk in its black fake-leather case until Gibbs comes back from wherever he goes during the commendation ceremonies. (Tony’s current theory is that Gibbs goes next door to the Naval Museum and looks at the exhibit about the Marines’ battles in the Pacific Theatre during World War II.) Tony picks up the case and walks it over to Gibbs’ desk, setting it next to his keyboard. Gibbs looks up at him, eyebrows raised, and Tony shrugs and goes back to his desk. A half-hour later, they catch a missing-persons report, and it’s off to the races.

The next day, their petty officer is still missing, Gibbs is staring at his computer with equal parts disdain and anger, and Tony is searching his desk for a clean undershirt. He pulls open the bottom right-hand drawer and sees black-leatherette medal cases identical to the one he handed over to Gibbs yesterday – and there are a lot more than the two Tony has accepted on his behalf. One case is different from the others, bigger and covered with blue velvet, and inside it is a Silver Star.

Tony looks up at Gibbs, raising his eyebrows. Gibbs gives a half-smile and a half-shrug at the same time, which in Gibbs-ese is a Shakespearean monologue. Tony half-smiles in return and shuts the drawer. Now where the hell did he stow that pack of undershirts?

_**Center drawer, top: Three #2 pencils, Ticonderoga brand, wrapped in a blue rubber band, 2005.** _

Tony doesn’t plan to take pencils from Kate’s desk; it just kind of happens while he’s cleaning out her things before one of her brothers comes to pick up her personal effects. In the top-center drawer is a brown-leather case, a sort of cylinder with a zipper running lengthwise. Tony unzips it and the case is full of pencils, a few of them fancy art-supply kinds, and the rest just standard yellow #2s. The memory of Kate’s sketches is like a tackle from a 300-pound Iowa farm boy, and Tony clenches his hand around the case. He almost caches the entire thing in his desk, but then it occurs to him that the pencil case may have been a gift; the leather is pretty nice quality. Instead, he takes out three of the yellow pencils, remembering the Ticonderogas he used in grade school, then grabs a blue rubber band out of Kate’s pen tray and wraps it around the pencils. He zips up the case and puts it in the box with the rest of Kate’s things.

A week later, he takes one of the pencils to a crime scene, figuring it might help to soften the sharp edges of Kate’s absence. After a few minutes he stows it in his backpack, in part because it feels stupid to make his little stick-figure diagrams with a pencil Kate would have used to make something a lot better than stick-figures, but also because he becomes terrified of losing it; it’s one of the few things he has to remember her by. (It seems wrong to think of her photo from the wet t-shirt contest as a keepsake.) 

So he puts the pencil back in his drawer, wrapped with the others in the blue rubber band. They sort of drift to the back of the drawer, but every once in awhile, he fishes them out and stares at them for a few minutes, then sets them down in the front of the drawer, under the pen tray. It’s a paltry remembrance, but it’s all he has. 

_**Top drawer, center: A postcard. The front is an aerial view of Monte Carlo; the reverse is a standard postcard design, with spaces for writing a short message and the delivery address. Postmarked Monaco, February 22, 2010.** _

It’s damp and cold the day the postcard arrives. Tony takes a hot shower to warm up before he goes downstairs to empty his mailbox. He stands next to the wastebasket in the kitchen, going through the stack and dumping the junk mail as he comes across it. Suddenly he’s looking at a photo of a port, an array of white sailboats moored in a large marina, the water and sky a sharp, impossible blue. On the left, a white crescent of buildings surrounds the harbor, climbing into the hills and then tapering off before the rise of the mountains in the background. Monte Carlo is written in white script at the top, and Tony knows who sent the card even before he flips it over.

_**Junior, The weather’s a little chilly, but the city is as charming as ever. You would love it here. Talk to you soon. Love, Dad** _

Tony leans his hip against the counter, a little dazed. This is the first thing he’s received from his father in years, at least since he was in college, maybe earlier. He reads the message again and again, not quite believing Senior ever thought to send it in the first place. Given what Tony paid for the plane ticket, it was an expensive postcard. 

He ends up grabbing a beer and taking the postcard into the living room, sitting on the couch and staring at the picture. Monte Carlo looks gorgeous, and Tony finds it easy to picture Senior there, tanned and robust in his best clothes, his gregarious nature bringing him into contact with the wealthy, glitzy people who frequent a tax haven like Monaco. For the purpose of scamming them, of course – the only thing weirder than being disowned at age twelve is realizing, at age thirty-nine, that you were disowned because the family money didn’t exist. 

He remembers saying goodbye to Senior in the lobby of the Adams House, and that moment when Senior said, “I love you, Anthony.” He was so taken aback he couldn’t respond. I love you, too would have been not-quite truthful, but I hate you would have been an outright lie. Even now, weeks later, Tony isn’t sure what the accurate response would have been.

He leaves the postcard on the coffee table, and over the next couple of days, he takes to staring at it, lost in memories. After a week or so, he brings it to work and sticks it in his desk, figuring he won’t be so distracted by it at the office. If nothing else, Gibbs doesn’t allow for much daydreaming during the workday. The tactic is successful, mostly. One day in March, Gibbs catches Tony putting the card back in the drawer and asks what it is.

“Just a postcard from my dad, boss. Got it a few weeks ago,” he replies, closing the drawer.

“Nice of him to think of you,” Gibbs says, sitting down behind his desk.

Tony pauses, thinking it over, and then says, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

_**Desktop, center-right: One standard-size metal stapler, decorated with the cartoon character Mighty Mouse, 2001.** _

When he and Gibbs get back from arresting Raimey for Danny’s murder, Tony’s first instinct is to throw away the Mighty Mouse stapler, because it reminds him that not only was he too dumb to realize Danny was dirty, he was too dumb to realize Raimey was in on it, too. He’s ashamed by his naivete and willful blindness.

At first, he leaves the stapler in its usual spot because McGee and Ziva would question its absence. Gibbs would know exactly why Tony had gotten rid of it, and would understand. In the end, it’s that very understanding that makes Tony keep the stapler – Gibbs knew about Danny, and offered Tony a job. Now Gibbs knows about Raimey, and still doesn’t appear to have any doubts about Tony. Just like last year, when Tony told Gibbs that Senior was a con man – Gibbs hadn’t chewed him out for having a criminal in the family, or for not knowing the situation until now. All he’d done was ask Tony what he was going to do with his newfound knowledge. After today, Gibbs knows the things Tony is most ashamed of, and Gibbs doesn’t care.

So Tony leaves the stapler on his desk, uses it all the time actually, and knows that Danny was a dirty cop but a good friend, he knows that Gibbs trusts him, and that McGee and Ziva will back him up. But there’s also a voice in the back of his head, reminding him about Danny and Raimey. He still keeps the stapler, though, because throwing it away wouldn’t keep him from hearing that voice. 

_**Pen tray, center-top drawer: Two-inch Phillips-head wood screw, steel composition, 2011.** _

A few months after his thing with E.J. fizzles out, after Tony brings in the mole, he looks around and realizes two things: One, he really does want to settle down with someone, and two, Gibbs apparently is the best prospect. One of the best things about being with E.J. was that she really understood his job and his fucked-up schedule and his request at every restaurant for a seat with a view of the door. Gibbs not only understands Tony’s fucked-up schedule, his schedule is even more fucked-up than Tony’s. He’s not a talker, which is good – E.J. had an unnerving way of trying to winkle information out of him all the time.

Gibbs has never exactly been subtle, what with the looks and the smiles, and they way he hasn’t really dated anyone in the entire time Tony’s been working for him, Hollis Mann notwithstanding. Tony hasn’t made a move because he knows Gibbs won’t break Rule 12. But it’s been ten years now, Tony is forty, and he’s ready to stop looking. He decides it’s time to force Gibbs’ hand.

Having reached that decision on a Friday night while half-watching Bullitt, he spends the weekend quietly panicking at home, and then on Monday starts observing Gibbs at work. He stops panicking after Day Four of the observation phase, when Gibbs not only continues giving him brief looks that Tony has no choice but to classify as sometimes fond and other times intently sexual, but also buys him a soy vanilla latte. The latte is the boldest signal yet, because Tony knows it caused Gibbs no end of irritation to order something so far removed from black coffee. He thinks about the last ten years, the looks from Gibbs he ignored for the sake of Gibbs’ rules, and the way Gibbs came into that isolation ward at Bethesda and told him he wasn’t going to die. He doesn’t know what Gibbs is looking for, something casual or something serious, but he can’t begin to figure that out until he can get Gibbs to start something.

So he decides Day Five would be a good time to speed things along.

Day Five they catch a hell of a case. It isn’t difficult to solve, but it’s always tough to find out someone has killed their best friend over fifty bucks. Tony had a coworker in Baltimore who referred to Charm City as the home of the misdemeanor homicide, and that’s just what this was. It leaves everyone feeling grimy and dispirited, including Gibbs, and Tony decides that he doesn’t want to be alone tonight, even if it’s just in Gibbs’ basement and not in his bed.

He eats a quick dinner at home and then stops to buy a bottle of Maker’s Mark on his way to Gibbs’ house. Not surprisingly, Gibbs is in the basement, and Tony takes off his jacket and drapes it on the old workbench along the wall. He leans against it to open the bottle and pour a couple fingers of bourbon into Gibbs’ chipped white coffee mug. Tony sets the mug on Gibbs’ new workbench, the one where he made the decorations for Franks’ casket. Tony doesn’t see any other glasses around, so he points at the row of Ball jars screwed to the underside of a wooden shelf and asks, “May I?” At Gibbs’ nod, Tony unscrews one of the jars and dumps its load of screws and nuts onto the old workbench. He uses the hem of his t-shirt to wipe off the mouth of the jar and pours in a healthy shot of bourbon, figuring the bourbon will kill anything really nasty lurking in his makeshift glass. 

He sips his bourbon and watches Gibbs work. As always, Gibbs isn’t self-conscious about being observed down here, a trait Tony admires. He hates being watched, unless he’s putting on a show. “What are you making?” 

“Toys, for the children’s hospital. Christmas.” It’s October, and Tony spies a few completed toys under the workbench.

He approaches the workbench and stands opposite Gibbs. “It’s a pull-toy?”

“Yeah,” Gibbs replies. “The axles go here and here, and the rope gets anchored here.”

Tony sidles to the end of the workbench and runs his fingers along the high curve of the pull-toy’s silhouette. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“A snail,” Gibbs says, with a half-smile.

“Are you going to paint it?”

“Nah, a high-school girl down the block is going to do it. She’s a lot better than I am.”

“It’ll be cute.”

“Yeah.” There’s an undercurrent in the air, one Tony recognizes as attraction or sex or pheromones or whatever. He can feel it thrumming under his skin, filling his lungs. He puts his hand on Gibbs’ arm, just above the wrist, and Gibbs stills. Tony can hear the two of them breathing. He starts sliding his hand up Gibbs’ arm, and when he gets to the bicep, Gibbs closes his eyes and whispers Tony’s name.

Tony steps around the corner of the workbench so he’s standing right next to Gibbs, facing his profile. Tony lets his hand fall to his side. Because Gibbs is sitting on a stool, his head is at Tony’s shoulder. Tony tips his head down and says, “Don’t chicken out on me now, Gunny,” hoping to get some kind of reaction. 

What he gets is Gibbs standing, turning to face him, and standing about a millimeter away from him. Tony holds his ground, and it feels like every cell in his body is straining toward Gibbs. The moment draws out like a filament until finally, Tony can’t take it anymore, and he puts his hand on Gibbs’ hip, hooking one of his fingers through a belt loop on Gibbs’ jeans and tugging Gibbs toward him.

Their bodies push together and Gibbs takes Tony’s mouth in a deep kiss, hot and slick and tasting of bourbon. Tony lets himself go, reveling in the solid mass of Gibbs’ body against his own, the scent of his skin, the play of muscles and bones under his hands as he slips them beneath Gibbs’ shirt and up his back. 

Eventually, they make their way up to bed for a night filled with urgent pleas and some outright begging on Tony’s part, although there are a few times when Gibbs sounds gratifyingly needy. In the morning, whisker-burned in awkward places and gloriously fucked out, Tony goes down to the basement to retrieve his jacket and sees the pile of screws and nuts he left on the workbench. Without thinking, he grabs a random screw and stuffs it into his pocket. Even he has to admit it’s pretty juvenile to keep a screw as a keepsake of the first time he and Gibbs, well, screw, but it’s something Gibbs won’t notice is missing, and it’s common enough that no one will wonder why he has it or what it means.

He brings it with him to work on Monday, having decided it will get lost in his apartment, mixed in with stuff left over from assembling his media stand, picture-hanging screws, et cetera, et cetera. He drops the screw into the pen tray in the center-top drawer, where he sees it a few times a day. Not that he really needs much reminding that he and Gibbs are heating up the sheets and eating dinner together more often than not. Gibbs even takes him to a movie, which is what causes Tony to realize Gibbs is actually dating him, not just blowing off steam. Somewhere during Month Five, when most of Tony’s stuff has migrated to Gibbs’ house and Gibbs says something about shopping for a new mattress on Saturday, Tony mentions his lease is up in three months, and Gibbs says, “Don’t sign a new one. Unless you really want to….”

After a few months of being with Gibbs pretty much 24/7, Tony’s savvy enough to see that Gibbs is nervous, so he just says, “Nope, don’t feel like it,” with a big smile on his face.

Gibbs smiles back, the wide-open one that Tony loves to see, and replies, “Okay, then. We’ll just move your mattress to the house instead of buying a new one.”

“Done,” Tony says, and puts his hand on top of Gibbs’ on the gear shift. Just a few more blocks until they’re home.


End file.
